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Recently, the redirect in ".net" failed (the ".com" was still up and running). In order to fix this issue, our hosting company split these two domains. Now, there are no redirects between the two sites but both domains have the same exact content.
To avoid duplicate content issues, I suggested that we direct the ".com" to point at the ".net" That way, our new, rebranded site is our main URL (we use this ".net" URL on all of our business cards, letterhead, etc.) and we have our content on just one domain.
However, Google indexes approximately 70 pages from our older ".com" domain while they only index about 7 from our newer ".net" domain. I'm told that if we redirect ".com" to ".net" our rankings will drop because Google indexes more pages from ".com"
Is this true? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry for the delay in a response to you.
It is probably true that you'll lose some rankings traction for several months. The amount varies by site. Sites with more authority, lots of backlinks and new content being created frequently tend to do better.
In your situation though, especially if your firm wants the .net to be the long term domain for the site, now is probably a good time to 301 the .com (or if you have a busy season, after that).
